Kicking and Screaming
by Alliriyan
Summary: Demons that refuse to die, and a new duo in town who are unluckily catnip for vampires. The Big Bad's taken Buffy's silver cross from Angel; the Mini Bad is biting off more than he can chew with comatose Faith. But is Oz a risk after wolf vs vampires? s4
1. Welcome to Sunnydale

This story is set sometime in season 4 after Spike is chipped, minus the Veruca episode so that Oz still graces us with his laid back presence. Contains OCs, but good ones. : )

--KICKING AND SCREAMING--

Tome I – **Welcome to Sunnydale**

A dusty red car veered around the corner, straining under the weight of the suitcases piled five high on its roof rack. Loud, thumping music blared into the night.

"Remind me again why we're moving to Sunnydale?"

The complaint was shouted in an attempt to be heard above the noise. The driver glanced to her left at the speaker before focusing back on the road.

"Because," she replied brightly; "the housing is super-cheap, it's nearer to friends, and I hear the death rate has really changed for the better in recent years."

The vehicle slowed momentarily as they passed the large sunshine 'enjoy your stay!' sign that staked out Sunnydale's territory.

"…You have _got_ to be joking."

"Bad taste," remarked the woman, raising an eyebrow.

"That's so insulting. Don't they realise this is the Hellmouth?"

--

Buffy exhaled noisily and dropped the stake she'd improvised from a white picket fence. "Are we done yet?" she yawned, grinding a black high heel into the dusty heap of ex-vampire as she left the cemetery. "Geez, it's _late!_ Are they trying to defeat me through sleep deprivation?!"

She couldn't really hide the fact that she was getting sluggish. That had been her fourth staking of the day – never mind the fact that it was now tomorrow – and the oppressive heat wave of the last fortnight had continued to hang around well into the night. Shoes clacking slowly along the pavements, she fully embraced the feeling of Thank-God-It's-Friday. Up until she remembered the lengthy essays all deadlined for Monday, anyway.

Thunder rumbled across the sky, and the unexpected cacophony was the only reason Buffy looked up to see the figure standing on the corner. It was like no figure she'd seen before, and it stared calmly into the distance with an air of repose.

A frisson of foreboding inched down the Slayer's spine.

Humanoid, yet clearly demonic, the stranger was tall and elegant. Draped in embroidered silk sashes and rippled Indian trousers, its hair was heaped on its head in a pile of elaborate knots and jewellery. The arms were crossed, but she could just see the glimmer of bangles and golden armbands beneath the shoulders. What was unsettling, rather than merely outlandish, was the ring of translucent crimson that punctured the skin of the muscular back twice and encircled its head in a morbid red halo.

When it swivelled a beautiful face in her direction, she had trouble deciding if it was male, female or both until it turned fully; attention caught. The demon fixed her with an intent look, strangely interested in her neck.

_Or chest_, supposed the girl; _he is a guy, after all. And I've met plenty of post-mortem perverts in my time…_

Analysis completed, Buffy launched into an attack. "Don't bet I'll give you time to even _think_ about becoming the next Big Bad!" she yelled, sprinting the remaining distance between them and high-kicking him in the head. He grunted as his neck snapped back, stumbling sideways. The ethereal attitude vanished. It was replaced by pure hatred.

"¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦!!" swore the latest opponent.

"Back at you times infinity!" chirped Buffy childishly, never needing a translation to know she was being cursed at. He balked, freezing up in fear almost as if he believed her. Seconds passed as she tried not to laugh at his reaction, realised it didn't matter, and laughed anyway. The monster glared; shoulders relaxing as whatever curse he'd called down on her failed to backfire.

She smashed a fist into his off-guard torso, pressing her advantage with a volley of fast, brutal blows. A spinning kick, two elbows cracking down on the lowered skull, knee to the chin and a heavy punch to the exposed throat to rattle his brain and impair his breathing. The Slayer could be likened to a one girl mob, and often was. Continuing her relentless assault, it seemed to be going smoothly.

Suddenly her victim retaliated.

Moving faster than she could react to in her overconfidence, he grabbed her left arm. Dragging it away was impossible: he was showing his true strength. Immovable strength. Buffy pulled back her right hand for a long-ranged, powerful hook. It connected with a satisfying _smack!_ that staggered her enemy.

The demon caught her right arm before she could withdraw it, recovering swiftly. Upper body trapped, she briefly considered the best way to kick him _really really hard_ inside the arm's length of space. Then he reached for her neck with a third hand, and she realised how deep the trouble she was in had become. She managed to lash out twice, but too soon he lifted her off the street, bodyweight hanging painfully from his chokehold.

_Shit! Shit! Oh fucking hell! _The woman who had defeated countless undead, surviving time and time again, gurgled helpless and panicking in the grip of a foreign god-like devil. _Why didn't I notice he had too many freaking arms?!_

A fourth hand stretched towards her. She couldn't see what was happening; only felt the long fingers with their sharp nails scraping her collarbone. Cold rings made of precious metals and gemstones brushed against her skin. The demon plucked at the silver cross that always hung from her neck, which Angel had given her the first time they met, the one necklace she never took off. Twisting his fist round the chain, he tugged sharply. It didn't break. Buffy had had far too much experience of losing accessories to risk buying the usual weak chain for her most treasured cross. He merely pulled harder.

The necklace dug deep into her spine, leaving red welts in her flesh before it finally succumbed to the pressure and snapped. Holding it up to the orange light of a streetlamp, it seemed that the only desire of the fiend had been procuring this trinket. He sang to the metal softly, eerily, and the sound echoed off the silver. It jangled in the Slayer's ears, making them ring at a shrill and painful degree. Buffy's body slackened, beginning to black out. She was dropped carelessly onto the tarmac road, head spinning.

The ornamentation and jewellery of the stranger chinked and chimed as he left her half-dead; walking serenely away with a graceful gliding movement. The polar opposite of the furtive habits of vampires, he showed no shame of his inhumanity. Rather he remained entranced by his prize, serenading the silver he had stolen all the way down the street.

Buffy lay where he'd left her, not coming to her senses until the weather finally broke and warm rain rushed from the black sky to drench her.


	2. Failure to Scoob

~KICKING AND SCREAMING~

Tome II – **Failure to Scoob**

Buffy quietly let herself into Giles's home, the front door having been left wide open yet again. The man himself was perched by a window watching the weather plummet down.

"I rather miss the rain back in England…" he murmured to himself, totally unaware of his visitor.

"Oh yeah? Well I wish it would stay over there – I'm soaked! My shoes! Ruined!"

Giles jumped, startled. "Buffy! Can't any of you knock?" He turned to look at her and raised an eyebrow. "That is a superb impression of a drowned rat, I must say."

Buffy dripped a puddle onto his carpet in silent reply. After a slight pause he took the hint and went to fetch a towel and a hot drink.

"I can't believe you miss _rain_," huffed Buffy, flopping onto the sofa a few minutes later. "Rain sucks. It's all wet."

"Definitively wet, yes. It's probably ah, England as a whole that I miss. Though I admit I enjoy the feeling of being inside and looking out at the rain. Almost mocking it." Giles sat down in the adjacent armchair and blew on his cup of tea.

"I'd agree with you," said Buffy sourly, accepting a mug of hot chocolate from him; "if I wasn't –"

"Soaked, I know. Now tell me, why didn't you go back home after patrol?"

The Slayer sort of deflated. "Oh, you know, the usual…" she spat miserably. "Trouble. I got mugged by a guy after dusting my fourth vamp. He took my silver cross, kinda knocked me out. I mean, if you feel lacking in Big Bads, that's your man." The teenager took a defiant slurp of her drink.

Her Watcher exhibited the appropriate expressions of surprise and worry. "B-but how? This is very unusual – a man you say? How did he knock you out?" He completely forgot to ask if she was hurt.

Buffy put a finger to her chin and tilted her head from side to side. "Gee, was it the chokehold, the weird singing, or just the heat? I mean, even a Slayer might get tired after five consecutive fights in the kind of weather that the weather just was. Right? It wasn't really a total blackout."

"No, not really. You, your destiny means you have superhuman endurance and strength; for one who has taken on several demons and vampires at once in the past, five individual fights should pose no problem. Barring snow, of course."

She couldn't believe he was lecturing her in her time of weakness.

"Giles, he had four arms! _Four_!"

"Four?!"

"…Didn't I mention that?"

"No."

"Oh."

"Well, now we're getting somewhere." He stood up and moved towards a stack of demonology tomes balanced on the TV. "Was he insectoid?"

"Nah, humanoid." She drank another mouthful of hot chocolate. "Got any little marshmallows?"

Giles went to the heap of ancient books next to his dragonfly lamp. "No," he replied distractedly; "Spike ate them all with his mugs of blood."

"Ew."

"Quite. How about this?" asked the ex-librarian, flicking through a volume bound in purple leather; "The Malaysian Water Ape, often has several pairs of arms depending on age, identified by its ability to form ice in hot places. Was the chokehold chilly at all?"

_What a ridiculous question_, snorted Buffy mentally. "Is this Malaysian guy ugly?" she queried out loud.

"Incredibly hideous," agreed Giles.

"Nope. Wrong monster phone book. Next!"

Giles closed the book and put it down with deliberate slowness. He looked at her gravely. "Is there nothing else you can tell me about this mugger? Did he, or perhaps 'it', speak? Could you guess as to why he wanted your necklace?"

"He looked like something from a Hindu temple, he swore at me in a weirdo language do-not-expect-me-to-repeat-it when I kicked him in the head, and he probably wanted the cross because it's my favourite, and the one Angel gave me, and totally irreplaceable, the bastard! When I kill this guy, it is gonna be **slow**," vowed the Kicker of Demon Ass.

"Why can't she tell me these crucial things from the start?" he grumbled, totally ignoring her and flicking through another book that had somehow been left on top of the microwave in the kitchen. _Nothing Hindu in here_, he mused.

Sighing, he straightened up and adjusted his glasses. "Buffy, would you like me to give you a lift home and we'll continue this tomorrow? The, er, Scoobies can convene, and figure this out together. Xander can bring donuts and – oh. You're asleep."

Indeed, Buffy was flaked out on the sofa; towel-wrapped head hanging over the arm and a hot chocolate moustache on her top lip.

_Very intimidating, _smiled her Watcher.

-¦-¦-¦-

In a dark, dark city, in a dark, dark street, in a dark, dark house, in a dark, dark room, in a dark, dark duvet…a woman snored.

Her son groaned and dragged a pillow over his head. For their first night in their new home they'd resorted to camping in the living room in sleeping bags. The yellow light of a streetlamp glared in his eyes, dusty net curtains that were the room's only furnishings doing nothing to block it out. In the night, their scarlet car was a hideous shade of purple. He'd much rather be asleep than staring at it with the weak vision of his human guise.

Eventually, when the world had dragged itself round to Monday, he would be able to go to UC Sunnydale and meet people (rumours that the student population were dropping like flies were very promising), rather than lie awake and listen to this.

His mother was a singer, occasionally, and she could produce some truly chilling harmonics. But when she was asleep that translated to uncontrollably fluctuating snores. Nothing level and rhythmic he could at least ignore. More like an opera diva's warm up.

Groaning again and shrinking inside his sleeping bag; he wished they had included the voice box when sealing away their more 'conspicuous' characteristics.

-¦-¦-¦-

On dogsbody duty and late because of it, Xander shuffled the bags and cartons of unhealthy foodstuffs to one hand so he could knock on the door.

"O Watcher of the Portal of the Gateway of Must-Have Knowledge and Musty Old Books! I come bearing gifts; let me in already before my arms drop off!"

The latch clunked and Giles opened the door. He looked harried, however looking harried was practically his hobby; thus Xander did not immediately realise anything was amiss.

"What have I, er, what have I told you about yelling out greetings to people in that manner, Xander?"

"…Not to? In case it summons monsters out of thin air? But that doesn't _count_ – it was stupid!"

"Yes, but you know demons…" The man shrugged. "The stupider the chant, the better."

Xander also shrugged, dumped his baggage, and then looked around the room. It was obliterated. The entire Scooby Gang had converged in order to drown Giles's flat in parchment. It was probably heaven for ex-librarians. "So who's the Nasty of the Week?" he asked cheerfully

His friends all stared at him pitifully. "We don't know!" wailed Willow.

"Some kind of four-armed pretty-boy demon with lots of jewellery and bangles and a really strong Indian theme," explained Buffy briskly, trying to sound business-like rather than admitting her research had failed just as spectacularly as everyone else's.

"So are we thinking animated statue that ran away from the local Hindu temple?"

Now they stared at him like he was the Second Coming of the Messiah.

"Genius!" squealed Willow, reaching for a tome that was bigger than her torso with renewed energy.

"Seriously, guys?" said Xander, knowing that if his ridiculous suggestions were not rejected out of hand, then they were all in deep sugar-honey-iced-tea. He glanced down at the box in his hand.

"…We're gonna need a bigger donut."


End file.
